Mickey Zucker Reichert - By Chaos Cursed (8 page)

Asril the Procurer rested a sandaled foot on the edge of Astryd’s bed, near the garnet-tipped dragonstaff. “So it’s settled. You have to kill Bolverkr, and the sooner the better.”

“One other thing.” Larson glanced at Astryd and Taziar for support, raising a topic they had apparently already discussed in Silme’s absence. “You’re not coming with us.” He caressed Silme’s side as he spoke.

Silme twisted toward Larson in disbelief. “You’d better be talking to Asril.”

“I’m talking,” Larson said firmly, “to you.”

Outrage welled within Silme, quickly snuffed by knowledge.
It’s not me they’re overprotecting, it’s the baby.
Instinctively, she clutched the tiny aura to her, felt the edges of its life energy blur into her own. She could not separate the two. Any spell she threw would sap its life force as well as hers, and, once emptied of chaos, the child would die. Thoughts of the coming battle and the risks to the baby had haunted Silme throughout Larson’s recovery. When the war against Bolverkr had seemed a distant threat, the decision had come easily. Now, the lives of her friends and husband had to take precedence over that of an unborn child. “That’s nonsense, Allerum. You won’t have a chance against Bolverkr without a Dragonrank mage.” As she spoke, memories tortured Silme. She recalled the hands of Bolverkr’s minion tearing at her clothes and person while she wrestled with the realization that Larson, Taziar, and Astryd battled dozens of prison guards, though a few simple spells and a dead fetus could rescue them all from humiliation and death.

“We’ll have Astryd.” Taziar gave Larson his full support, unaware Silme’s thoughts had wandered far beyond her protest. “With you or not, we’re not going to be able to best Bolverkr with magic. He’s too powerful. It’s going to have to be by surprise and luck.”

Astryd spoke next, as if to demonstrate that she had thought the subject through as well. “Of us all, you’re the only one Bolverkr won’t hunt down. We have nothing to lose by fighting him. If we don’t, he’ll kill us anyway, But you, he’ll let live. And the baby.” Astryd’s loyalty to and excitement about the baby had been unwavering since its conception. Though a mediocre sorceress compared with Silme, she had taken over the magical needs of the group. When Bolverkr’s sorcery had trapped Silme in an alternate dimension, escapable only by magic, Astryd had allowed Silme to tap her life aura, a rare process that had nearly resulted in Astryd’s death. “By killing Loki, Allerum assured that our Norse gods would endure through eternity. The White Christ will never come, and Allerum’s friends and family, his entire world, will never come about. This baby is the only proof that the nine worlds will ever have that Lord Allerum the Godslayer ever existed.”

Silme closed her eyes, allowing Astryd’s words to seep into her soul, dragging the burden of grief with it. Though not directly spoken, Astryd’s words brought home the realization that the task her companions were going to undertake this day was nearly or completely impossible and almost certainly fatal. To die with them was folly. Yet she could not shake the fact that, even though far weaker than Bolverkr, she could add power to her friends’ attack. The understanding that she had inadvertently stabilized Bolverkr. in her dream, losing her friends the days or weeks they might otherwise have had to prepare, saturated the realization with guilt. “At least let me come along. I’ll only use magic if the situation becomes desperate.”

“No!” Larson sat up and pounded a fist onto the shelf hard enough to send the last few books tumbling to the floor. “The situation is desperate already. The last time you helped me fight a Dragonrank Master, you forced me to kill you. I won’t do it again. I swear it, Silme. I’ll let Bolverkr destroy me and everyone else in the world before I’ll take your life again.”

Silme remembered as vividly as if it had happened the previous day. Before Larson had fought Loki, he had had to face her half-brother, Bramin. In order to neutralize Bramin’s magic, Silme had linked her life aura to his, and Larson’s sword had killed them both. To restore Silme’s life, Larson and Gaelinar had been forced to barter with the goddess Hel, an insane task that had made them enemies among the gods and had ultimately resulted in Bolverkr’s tragedy and crazed hunt for vengeance. “But even without magic, I could distract ...” she began.

Larson interrupted with a crisp wave of dismissal. “The only person you’re going to distract is me. You and the baby would be just one more thing to occupy my mind when all I should be thinking about is killing Bolverkr. I don’t want you there, and you’re not going to be there. Case closed.”

Anger boiled up inside Silme, but she bit it back. In her mind, the case was far from closed, but the time for arguing had ended. She saw no need to aggravate Larson just before what might well prove the final battle for them all.

Larson sprang to his feet. “Let’s get this over with.” He strode toward the door.

Taziar intercepted Larson, hooking his sleeve with a finger. “Not so fast,
buddy.
” His harsh, German accent mangled the American slang. “Don’t be in such a hurry to die. We can’t fight Bolverkr unless we can make it to Bolverkr.”

Larson studied Taziar blankly.

“The baron’s guards think I escaped. They probably won’t be quite so alert and numerous as before, but they do know you came to Cullinsberg with me. The baron’s offered a generous enough bounty to make the guards willing to slaughter one another. They’re not going to let you walk through the front gates without a thorough questioning.” Taziar placed the emphasis on the last few words, obviously intending the expression as a euphemism for torture.

Asril the Procurer laughed. Rising, he stretched like a cat, then leapt lightly between Larson and the door. “You concentrate on Bolverkr and leave the baron’s imbeciles to me. With the help of a few dozen thieves, con men, and street gangs, I’m sure I can divert Cullinsberg’s red and black long enough for you to get over the south wall. Deal?”

Silme’s gaze went naturally to Taziar. She saw the familiar sparkle in his blue eyes that accompanied the opportunity to work against impossible odds. Yet the dullness of his other features belied the excitement. Beneath it all, Taziar knew he no longer belonged in the city of his birth, the place he had called home for all but the last half year. And it pained him.

A deep silence ensued.

A moment later, Silme found herself enwrapped in Larson’s arms. His fine white hair felt like silk against her cheeks, smelling pleasantly of soap. His elven frame appeared delicate, but there was nothing fragile about the arms that crushed her to him.

Tears filled Silme’s eyes, and she knew with grim certainty that the only man she had ever loved enough to marry would almost certainly be lost to her forever.

A still small voice spake unto me,
“Thou art so full of misery,
Were it not better not to be?”

—Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The Two Voices

The pine and hickory forest beyond the walls of Cullinsberg seemed to close in on Al Larson. He trailed Taziar in silence, trying to focus his thoughts on Bolverkr. But other concerns crowded in, unable to be banished. The tight, damp foliage dragged up memories of suffocating Vietnamese jungles, the reek of blood, gasoline, and excrement, death screams, the echoing shrieks of macaws, and the distant chop of helicopter blades. Through it all, he could not shake a feeling of enemies prowling silently behind him. Every few steps, he stopped abruptly, straining his hearing for the rustle of movement at his back. Occasionally, the rattle of brush or a twig snap answered his efforts, increasing his discomfort though he knew the noise had to come from Taziar, Astryd, or his own hyperactive imagination.

“Here. Stop.” Taziar whispered suddenly. Though soft, his voice shattered a long and oppressive quiet.

Larson pushed past Astryd to Taziar’s side.

Taziar halted Larson with an extended hand. “Remember what I told you about seeing magic?”

Larson nodded, staring ahead indirectly as the others had shown him. Now he could see the braid of Bolverkr’s ward, as tangled and forbidding as a perimeter of concertina wire. “I see it.” His voice sounded strained, even to his own ears. Only then did he realize he was gripping Gaelinar’s sword’s hilt so tightly that his hand had blanched and the brocade had left impressions in his palm. Bothered by his paranoia, he freed his hand and shook it to restore the circulation.

“There’s another circle of magic just inside the first.” Taziar rested a palm against the trunk of a sturdy oak with several jutting branches. “Careful now. Follow me.” He shinnied to a high limb with an ease and quickness Larson could never hope to copy.

“Yeah, right,” Larson mumbled. Turning, he motioned Astryd over to the base. Cupping his hands, he created a step for her. “Put your foot here. I’ll give you a boost.”

Astryd looked doubtfully from Larson’s fingers to the wards while Taziar watched with nervous expectation. Dutifully, Astryd passed her dragonstaff to Taziar, then placed her booted foot on Larson’s hands.

Short even compared with Taziar’s five foot nothing, Astryd seemed nearly weightless to Larson. He hoisted her without difficulty, waiting until she caught a solid grip on a higher branch before lowering his hands. Though agile, Astryd looked as awkward as a growing adolescent compared with Taziar’s practiced grace. Sighing, Larson seized the trunk and followed her, the rough bark scratching his hands.

Taziar waited only until Larson had reached the branch on which he and Astryd perched before tossing the garnet dragonstaff safely over the wards. He leapt in a gentle arc to the ground, then signaled for Astryd to jump.

Astryd hesitated while Larson waited, clinging to the branch with one hand, the other braced against the trunk. She lowered herself over the limb, dangling by her hands to lessen the distance to the ground, then let go. She plummeted dangerously close to the wards. Larson held his breath, scrambling to a position that might allow him to make a desperate dive for her. Before he could leap, Taziar stepped between Astryd and the barrier, catching a slender arm and hauling her to safety.

Larson clambered to the branch, heaving a sigh of relief. He waved Astryd and Taziar out of his way, not liking the distance of the jump. In junior high school, a lesser fall had broken Larson’s arm. Edging to the end of the branch, he sprang to the ground, hit, and rolled to his feet, unharmed.

“That’s the hardest part,” Taziar said. “The rest is just dodging around wards. Take your time, don’t get sloppy, and you should do fine.”

Larson clapped dirt from his palms. He took little solace from Taziar’s words. Accustomed to judging obstacles by his own ability to surmount them, Taziar’s idea of “sloppy” rarely gibed with Larson’s. A high school soccer player, weight lifter, and college boxer, Larson had always considered himself fit, but Taziar’s nimbleness made the American feel clumsy. Worse, thrown onto an unfamiliar body, Larson had been forced to relearn coordination, a competence rapidly acquired and sorely tested by Gaelinar’s sword lessons as well as Bramin’s and Loki’s attacks.

Without further warning, Taziar headed off, soundlessly weaving through the brush. Astryd followed. Larson darted glances in all directions, locating the splayed pattern of magical glints, memorizing positions and trying to trace Astryd’s footsteps. Yearly deer hunts in the New Hampshire forests had accustomed Larson to pine forests and moving quietly over twigs and brush, and months in Vietnamese jungle had made him oversensitive to the sounds of rustling foliage. Again, he thought he heard a distant noise behind them. His palms went slick, and sweat dampened the leather-wrapped hilt of Gaelinar’s katana. Larson cursed himself.
Keep your mind on the wards. There’s nothing behind you. And even if there is, it can’t possibly be as dangerous as what’s ahead.